


Harvey Was - ficlet

by deawrites



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Adult Content, Boys In Love, M/M, Medical Trauma, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-15 00:23:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11219358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deawrites/pseuds/deawrites
Summary: All the times Harvey encountered Jim Gordon pre-GCPD partnership





	Harvey Was - ficlet

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are my own. But feel free to point them out so I can fix them!
> 
> All comments, questions, suggestions, criticisms and kudos welcome. 
> 
> Just a short little something to post while I'm working on another 10k-ish plot bunny.
> 
> As always to my soulmate, my lovely wife!

GORDLOCK: Harvey Was

Harvey Bullock was seventeen years old the first time he met James Gordon. At the time, it had been spring break and Harvey had been underfoot; all the Bullock children still living at home were; and Grace Bullock wanted them out of her hair and doing something productive. For Harvey that meant babysitting the toddler of a very nice woman Grace had recently met at the beauty parlor where they both got their hair done. The woman’s name was Nora Gordon and her youngest son; James; needed a sitter. Grace volunteered Harvey as he was one of the more responsibility minded of her children and before he even knew what hit him, Harvey had left the Narrows and was in Gotham proper standing in a foyer bigger than the room he shared with two of his brothers, agreeing to call Nora if he had any questions.  Harvey had a hundred and one of them, beginning with; what the fuck was he doing here?

 

He heard a murmur then grunt from the living room and wandered further into the interior of the house where a play pen stood housing a blond, two-year-old with the biggest blue eyes that Harvey had ever seen. His hair was mussed from a recent nap, he had a pacifier in his mouth and wore elastic waisted jeans that were big enough to cover his diaper, and a stripped tee shirt that rode up a little high over his round belly.

 

“Hey there Buddy.” Harvey greeted walking over to the pen. He placed his hands upon his knees bending over to put himself more eye level with the child and smiled at him. Large, impossibly blue eyes blinked back three times before a chubby right hand reached out towards his nose and the other clung to the play pen railing to help him remain standing. James fussed slightly when his hand didn’t encounter Harvey’s face, and when he opened his mouth the pacifier fell out into the confines of the pen.  “Woops. You want that back?” Harvey made a move to reach for it, but James reached for him instead and one hand twisted in his hair, the second his cheek.  “Hey, ow! Watch it Kid, I’m not a pull toy.”

 

Harvey gently pried James’ hands off him which resulted in the immediate eruption of hysterical tears from the child. It took Harvey five minutes of pleading, and within seconds of picking up the little, blond, fuss bucket the child fell silent and rested his head upon Harvey’s shoulder, tears and snot thick upon his face. Relieved just to have silence Harvey snatched the pacifier out of the pen and attempted to put it in the boy’s mouth, but James refused looking this way then that stubbornly. Harvey abandoned the pacifier in the pen and spied a box of Kleenex’s upon a side table. He grabbed a couple and proceeded to wipe James’ face. The child resisted at first but then surrendered and Harvey praised him by smoothing out his blond locks next.

 

“There we go. See? Uncle Harvey’s not so bad, huh?” Harvey felt a tug at the hair at the nape of his neck. It seemed that James liked to hold a fist full of his hair, fine; whatever kept the little guy quiet was fine with Harvey.

 

Harvey was twenty-two-years-old when he was reintroduced to James Gordon. The seven-year-old was wearing a gray hoodie at least two sizes too big for him and had a bloody nose and a black eye. There was a crying eleven-year-old girl standing next to him, and a pair of uniformed police officers explaining to him why he shouldn’t chase down a man five times his size even if said man were trying to pull a little girl into a building against her will. James glared, expression staunchly opposed to what he was being told. Yet there was a softness around the edges of his gaze, pricked with tears of fear of what had happened to himself, and what would have most likely happened to the little girl beside him.  The GCPD Recruits were jogging past the place of the incident, respectfully saluting the uniformed officers as they passed. Harvey’s gaze caught James’ and he could have sworn the kid jutted his chin out to him in respect. The brazen act had made him nearly laugh, but he cracked a smile instead and nodded back at the kid as if to say, “right back at ya”. Had he known it was little James Gordon he might have pulled to the back of the group so he could have a few more seconds of eye contact and recognition.

 

Harvey was twenty-seven-years-old the next time he saw James Gordon.  The twelve-year-old was trapped in an upside-down car among bent metal, shattered glass and the corpse of his father. Harvey had been one of the first responders on the fatal crash site and didn’t hesitate to throw himself on the ground with a trapped pre-teen and try to talk him through the worse event in his short, privileged life.  Harvey had been persistent, compassionate and held James’ hand until the fire fighters could cut him out of the wreck that once resembled an automobile.

 

“Can you look at me Jimmy?” Harvey asked trying to deflect the boy’s stare from his father’s bloodied head to his own falsely competent features. “You’re doing great. That’s it,” He praised as finally tear-filled eyes locked upon his own.

 

“It’s,” James began in halted speech. “ **Jim**. Not _Jimmy_.”

 

“Oh yeah? Well I’m sorry about that Buddy. Hey Jim? You like sports at all?”

 

Jim’s brow furrowed. “What?”

 

“Sports. You know, baseball, basketball, football? Things like that. You play anything in school? On a team?”

 

Jim swallowed his brain trying to wrap around the question he was asked. “Soccer. I play, soccer.”

 

“Yeah? I was more of a football guy myself on the count I was always bigger than the other kids. You know,” Harvey paused and puffed out his cheeks as if his mouth were incredibly full. “fat.” He smiled at Jim and stretched out his hand to lay a hand upon the teen who was suspended upside down in the car by the grace of his seatbelt. His father had been smashed down, his spinal column severed and crushed in a most gruesome fashion. “But my real love is Hockey. I didn’t get to play much as a kid because well, equipment is expensive as heck. But have you ever seen the Gotham Gladiators play? Man, I’m telling you, those guys know how to move a puck.”

 

Jim nodded, not agreeing but merely acknowledging that words were coming at a steady flow at him from Harvey’s lips. The hand on his shoulder was warm; comforting in and of itself and Jim leaned his face towards the appendage to rest his cheek upon it. “Why? Why are we talking about sports?”

 

“Just taking an independent poll.” Harvey smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring and not panicked. “See, I have a few buddies at the 75th that well, don’t think too much of Gotham’s teams. Where do you weigh in on that topic, Jim? Should we keep them or say screw it and invest the money into like a giant mall or something?”

 

“There’s the Mall of America.” Jim informed eyes prickling with unshed tears. His breathing was beginning to hitch as he was becoming overwhelmed by the situation. “We should, keep the teams?” He obviously wanted to answer in a manner that would please Harvey.

 

“Hey, you’re right.” Harvey assured Jim squeezing his shoulder slightly. “There’s already a gigantic mall. Maybe we could be famous for something else? You know, if the teams’ thing doesn’t work out. Maybe we could have a celebrity of some kind. Or building shaped like something weird.”

 

“Weird? Like what?”

 

“I dunno. A giant sandwich maybe?” Jim cracked a smirk at this and Harvey shrugged. “Something stupid I guess to bring the tourists in.”

 

“Why not, something that’s an architectural wonder?”

 

Harvey considered this; the kid was smart and keeping his head in the crisis. Perhaps there was hope that the trauma wouldn’t permanently damage him too deeply.  “Or that.” Harvey smiled and his thumb brushed up Jim’s cheek gently. “You like architecture Jim?”

 

“No. It just made sense.”

 

Nothing for that entire night would make sense to Jim ever again. The how and why’s of the crash would forever haunt him and induce nightmares far into his adult hood. For Harvey, he would always remember the stoic kid he desperately wanted to take into his arms and protect from the pain weighting down his young shoulders. It wasn’t fair for a boy to lose his father; and this Harvey knew from experience. At least his was alive and just absentee in his raising of his children. For Jim the situation was far, far worse.

 

Harvey was a hard forty-eight-years-old the final time; he was reintroduced to James Gordon.  Now all traces of the wide-eyed toddler, and brave yet fearful seven-year-old and teen were gone, and in their place reined a stubborn, naïve, self-righteous, dickhead. Harvey hated him instantly but was forced to work with him. Dix was gone and Jim Gordon was the new, proclaimed golden boy of the GCPD, that everyone was forced to put up with. At least that was until he either got with the program or resigned from the force in frustration. However, Jim had proved tenacious and not only stayed, but was instrumental in making the station house a better place.  Harvey not only came to admire Jim, but pledged to aid him in the cleanup of the city and the police department.  Along the way, somehow, they had become not just colleagues but partners, friends and brothers.

 

Harvey was forty-nine-years-old when he realized there was something deeper that he felt for Jim. Something that was more than mere affection or sexual desire; something profound.  Harvey Bullock had been in love a few times over the course of his life, but this time; with Jim; he knew there was something more enduring about it.  This wasn’t his two ex-wives or Scottie Mullens; this was a new breed of affection that Harvey had never encountered before. It was frightening and simultaneously exhilarating. Harvey accepted that Jim did not feel the same; Barbara Kean and Leslie Tompkins were evidence of that; but it did nothing to deter him from hoping that one day Jim would realize what Harvey was freely offering to him if he but reach out a hand in return.

 

Harvey was fifty-one-years-old when he wed for the third and final time. The wide-eyed toddler that loved holding a fistful of Harvey’s hair was now the man who stood by his side through all things.


End file.
